John McCain Says Defense Secretary's Plan To Close Gitmo 'Forthcoming'

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said on Thursday that he expects a Pentagon plan soon on the closing of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

McCain said that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has promised to present a plan for the shutdown of Gitmo.

“I talked to him this morning and he said a plan would be forthcoming,” he said. A defense policy bill led by McCain, which passed in the Senate on Thursday, would allow the Obama administration a path to shut down the controversial prison as long as it is approved by Congress.

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The administration criticized the congressional approval process, deeming it “unnecessary and overly restrictive.”

McCain said he wasn’t informed of a timeline for receiving the plan, but said that he was first told that a plan was coming three weeks ago.

“The President asked me over to the White House. I didn't request to come to the White House,” he told reporters. “They invited me over there about the issue of the detainees. I said give us a plan.”

Detainees at Guantanamo have slowly been transferred to other facilities, with the Obama administration most recently sending six longtime detainees from the Cuba facility to Oman, a nation on the Arabian Peninsula.